


Come to my house

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Canon Era, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2019-09-28 01:52:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17173583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: David tries to lure a sick Jack back to his home to rest.





	Come to my house

Jack was pale, and there was a clammy sheen to his face which David disliked immensely. This didn’t stop the cowboy from calling out the day’s headlines, not any more than the persistent cough that had been following him all week did, but the papers were leaving his hands slower than usual. There was a difference between looking cute and harmlessly ill, the way Les could play at, and looking like you were on death’s door and liable to spread your pestilence to whomever dared to step near you.

“Wanna go back to my place?” David asked, around noon. 

“Nah.” Jack hefted his papers higher up over his shoulder. “Gotta sell these. What else are we gonna do with ‘em.” 

“We could take them back to the distribution center.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

“What?” David asked, his tone somewhere between sarcastic and challenging. “We could. Didn’t we take on Mr. Pulitzer this summer for that express purpose?” 

“We took the jerk on so he’d bring the price back where it started out. Kinda hazy on the details there, for bein’ the guy who organized the whole thing.” 

David shrugged, “My point is, we worked really hard to gain the ability to take those papers back if we can’t sell them. So do it. Take them back, get your refund, and come to my house to lie down for a little while. You’ve earned that much.”

“Come to my house to lie down,” Jack repeated, all high and mocking, to the point where David would have hit him if he wasn’t a pacifist, and more than a little afraid of knocking him over. Jack ducked his head when he caught the look that David was giving him, and rubbed the back of his neck, looking apologetic, though he didn’t say anything.

“We have tea,” Les piped up. “And cough elixir.” 

“Don’t drink the cough elixir!” David interrupted. He wasn’t sure what was in it, only that the one time he and Sarah had taken it, Sarah had been convinced that the furniture could speak, and David had been so inclined to agree that he’d joined her in presiding over a very important family meeting with a chair and a desk lamp. It had stopped his cough, but David got a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach every time he thought about the event, even though absolutely nothing bad had happened, and the desk lamp’s political theories had seemed interesting and fun at the time. 

“This I gotta hear about,” said Jack. David tried to ignore the heat rising in his cheeks. 

“Well,” Les started, but David was quick to cut him off.

“We don’t have time to tell the story while we sell.” David gave Les the most pointed look he could muster. Jack smiled, and David thought he was about to say something, but instead a coughing fit overtook Jack and rumbled through the very deepest part of his chest, like the most painful thing David could imagine. He wrapped his arm tentatively around Jack’s back. “Maybe the cough elixir would be worth a try,” he wondered aloud. 

“No thanks. I’m good,” Jack wheezed, making himself sound even worse in his attempt to push through and talk before he was fully able to. “I’d pay a penny to hear ‘bout what that stuff did to you, though.” 

David bit his tongue to keep from asking how Jack knew the cough elixir had done anything to him in particular. Jack knew him. He could figure things out. Maybe he ought to try and gauge Jack’s fever, David reasoned, to see if it was worth using stupid embarrassing stories to keep him warm and indoors. Making up his mind, David pressed his hand to his forehead, before touching Jack’s, and then going back to touch his own once more. He’d done this about a million times before with Les, but touching Jack felt different.

“You’re practically on fire,” David informed him. Jack was giving him a strange look now, and for the second time in a space of less than ten minutes, David realized he was blushing. He didn’t even know why. He hadn’t done anything strange.

“What?” David asked.

“Your ma do that for you when you’re sick?” Jack asked. 

“Yes!” Les chimed in. “And she makes us tea, and we can stay in bed and not go to school. She even reads to us…” 

“She reads to Les,” David clarified. “Anyway, you’re burning up, and we’re not talking about me. So let’s go home. I’ll tell you stories.”

“’Bout cough elixir?” Jack asked. 

David nodded. 

“Just so’s you know, I’m only comin’ because I’m interested in what you’ve gotta say.” 

“I’ll make it good,” David promised. “I’ll try to live up to my nickname.” 

“The Walking Mouth,” Jack said, with a chuckle that turned into a cough, and for once David didn’t even want to glare at him for calling him that. If bribing Jack with stories was going to get him to listen to reason, David was willing to fill the role.


End file.
